Google said Tuesday it is opening a research and development office in China -- quickly drawing a lawsuit from Microsoft for hiring away one of that company's top China experts to lead the new effort.
The R&D center, to be headed by former Microsoft executive Kai-Fu Lee, will open sometime in the third quarter of 2005, the Mountain View search technology company said Tuesday. Google would not say where in China the center will be located.

As in $12,500 big. As in an all-expense-paid-trip-to-Vegas big. That's exactly what Richmonder Adam Cyrus swept up this past May when he won a Bodog.com online satellite poker tournament that placed him in this week's World Series of Poker event in Sin City.

Cyrus, an analyst at local Richmond investment bank Harris Williams & Co., entered the online qualifying tournament after finishing up work late one Saturday night and, after a "nerve-wracking" three-hour game.

London will host the 2012 Olympic Games after pulling off a spectacular victory to snatch the biggest prize in world sport from the favourite Paris.
The British bid beat its French counterpart in a final, after the other three candidates had been successively eliminated in voting by more than 100 International Olympic Committee members.
Jacques Rogge, the IOC president, made the announcement just before 8pm after a day of high tension in a downtown Singapore hotel.

Deutsche Telekom's mobile arm T-Mobile will use Web search leader Google as the starting point for surfing the Internet on its mobile phones to promote Internet usage, T-Mobile said on Wednesday.
T-Mobile, Europe's second-largest mobile operator, is moving to provide full Internet access on its phones, abandoning the unpopular "walled garden" concept in which operators give access to their own choice of Web sites.

A dispute over casino money between the state of Michigan and two American Indian tribes has landed in federal court.
The state last week sued the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians and the Little River Band of Ottawa Indians, both of which stopped paying 8 percent of their electronic gambling revenues to the state over the past couple of years.
They had been making the payments as called for under compacts with the state.

Yahoo, Overture, Inktomi…here are three names that might change the search engine market.

To cut a long story short, four years ago Yahoo search capabilities were powered by a new-comer, Google.
But Yahoo was unhappy to share the earnings with Google, so someone of the top management decided that is time to go alone in the search engine business.

American Indian tribes shared $900 million in casino gambling revenue with governments in 2004, a 23 percent increase over the previous year, according to a comprehensive review of Indian gaming released Wednesday.

The report said 405 tribal casinos in 30 states also contributed $6.2 billion in taxes, two-thirds of which went to the federal government. The rest was split between local and state governments, the annual Indian Gaming Industry Report found.

A&E television network will be airing a new reality show called Married in Vegas. The show is about a day in the life of the Viva Las Vegas Wedding Chapel located in Las Vegas, Nevada.

The show will air on the A&E Network on July 12, 2005 at 10 p.m. It is scheduled to be repeated on Saturday, July 16, 2005 at 4 p.m. following Caesars 24/7.

The show is called "Married in Vegas." It is about one day in the life of Viva Las Vegas Wedding Chapel, where more than 40 weddings went on in a single day.

The gambling business is flourishing in Russia nationwide. However, the people, who make their living on other people's passion for gambling, may soon experience tough days in the near future. The Russian authorities, mayors, parliamentarians, high-ranking politicians, are launching a real struggle against the gambling industry.
The anti-gambling attack started in Russia's major cities, such as Moscow, St.Petersburg, Volgograd, etc. Municipal authorities ordered to remove numerous so-called slot game machines, known in Russia as "slot-pillars."

Three Formula 1 drivers have announced that they will attend the La Grande Nuit F1 ball, to be held this Friday, June 10, at the Casino de Montréal.
To be among the other special guests are Jarno Trulli of Team Toyota, who is ranked 3rd going into this weekend's Grand Prix, Olivier Panis, also of Team Toyota, and Patrick Friesacher with the Minardi Team.
"We are extremely pleased that Messrs. Trulli, Panis and Friesacher will be joining us at La Grande Nuit F1," exclaimed Yves Devin, General Manager of the Casino de Montréal.